Georgia Indicts Trump: The Democratic Party’s Operation Barbarossa

In the spring of 1940, Adolf Hitler was in the catbird seat. Nazi Germany had conquered almost all of Europe. France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Denmark, and Norway were under the Nazi heel. Fascist Italy was Germany's ally, and Vichy France actively collaborated with the Nazis.

What more could an ambitious dictator want? Still, Hitler wasn't satisfied. In June 1941, he launched Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of Russia.  German troops attacked along an 1800-mile front and captured thousands of square miles of Russian territory. At first, all went well, and the Russians retreated eastward across the steppes and waited for winter.

Then, the Russians counterattacked and drove the Germans all the way back to the cratered streets of Berlin. Millions of people died as a result of Hitler's hubris. And, as we all know, Germany lost the Second World War.

Over the last few months, federal and state prosecutors have indicted Donald Trump, accusing him of election interference and racketeering. Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis filed the latest indictment in a Georgia state court.

I believe the Georgia indictment is the Democratic Party's Operation Barbarossa. Launched with glee and a bully's swagger, this misadventure will only strengthen Donald Trump. The Democrats believe that Trump's legal problems will neutralize him as a political threat. However, persecution has only increased Trump's popularity. He will almost certainly be the Republican Party’s nominee for the presidency next year.

If the Democrats had played by the rules of decency and fair play, Donald Trump would have faded into oblivion like Ross Perot or William Jennings Bryan. Unfortunately, the Democrats made him a martyr.

A lot can change before election night in November of next year. Nevertheless, it appears today that Americans will be forced to choose between President Biden, a demented crook, or Trump to be the next president of the United States. The Democratic Party will be surprised by how people vote when faced with this choice.

The Dems have sown the wind, and they will reap the whirlwind.

The Georgia Indictment of Donald Trump: The Dems' Operation Barbarossa

Where did Fani Willis go to law school?

 Fani Willis, a Georgia attorney general, filed criminal charges against former President Donald Trump a few days ago. Although the complaint has some bells and whistles, she's essentially charging Trump with challenging the results of the 2020 presidential election.

The last time I checked, the First Amendment guarantees the right of all Americans to state their opinion on political matters. Certainly, it protects a political candidate's right to challenge the results of an election.

And this gives rise to the question: Where did Ms. Willis go to law school?

She graduated from Emory School of Law. Did Emory stop offering courses on constitutional rights?

However, Willis's outrageous conduct can't be explained by the law school she attended. Jack Smith and Alvin Bragg are prosecuting Trump in different venues. And they both got their law degrees from Harvard. Indeed when we examine the credentials of all the attorneys who have contributed to the foul stew of persecution and malicious behavior toward President Trump, we see that many graduated from elite law schools.

I'm no fan of Donald Trump, and I fervently hope he is not the Republican nominee for the 2024 presidential election. Nevertheless, it appears more and more likely that he will win the nomination. And surely everyone of sound mind knows that the US Supreme Court will not allow the state of Georgia to imprison a former president or a sitting president on such specious charges as Miss Willis has concocted.

Indeed, the Georgia case against the former president will undoubtedly be removed to federal court. If the case gets assigned to a federal judge who has read the Constitution, most, if not all, of the baloney in Willis's charging documents will be tossed out of court.

A character in one of Cormac McCarthy's novels said that evil has no Plan B because it cannot contemplate the possibility of failure. The Democratic Party is behind all this nonsense against President Trump, and prosecuting him has only made him stronger. 

It needs a plan B but doesn't have one. It needs a plan for removing President Biden and Vice President Harris from office and replacing them with candidates who can win the next presidential election.

Instead, the Democratic Party is playing with fire on both the national and international stage. The world is watching this insanity. The world knows President Joe Biden is a crime boss with dementia. The world knows the United States backed the loser in Russia's war against Ukraine. The world knows that the Biden administration is writing checks on an overdrawn bank account.

Reality will show up in the next few months when the economy collapses, bringing all this craziness to a halt. Many innocent people will suffer before this nation's affairs are straightened out. I fervently hope that the people who suffer most will be the people who created this mess. Curiously, many of these ninnies graduated from the nation's top law schools.

Are we having fun yet? The Ukraine war intensifies, and Americans are enthralled by Barbie

Ukraine’s war with Russia has dragged on for 18 months and shows no signs of ending. It's like The Walking Dead series; it ran on and on long after its audience became bored. General Milley warned Americans that the war would be a long one; perhaps the only honest thing he's said about it.

The mainstream media casts this war as a barbaric act of Russian aggression. However, pro-war columnists neglect to mention that the United States provoked this war when it helped overthrow Ukraine’s democratically elected pro-Russian president in 2014. American meddling alarmed the Russians, and they quickly seized Crimea, where a substantial Russian naval base is located.

Pro-Russian Ukrainian separatists, aided by the Russian government, have been fighting the Ukrainian army in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine since 2014--resulting in a stalemate. Then in February 2021, President Vladimir Putin decided he's had enough and ordered the Russian army to invade Ukraine. 

So far, the Ukrainians have held their own, aided mightily by high-tech weapons and money donated by the NATO countries and the United States. The US alone has invested $100 billion in the Ukrainian Project.

Ukraine launched its highly publicized counteroffensive against the Russians in the late spring of this year. It is now August, and it is clear that the Ukrainian counterattack has failed.

Now Ukraine seeks to heat up this war against Russia by other means. Earlier this year, the Ukrainians launched missile attacks against the city of Moscow. They also attacked the Kerch Bridge, a critical land link between Crimea and the Russian motherland.

Russia retaliated by canceling the grain agreement that allowed Ukrainian wheat to be exported by sea. Russia also began bombing Odessa and other important grain ports on the Danube River.

Now the war has spread to the Black Sea. Ukrainians have attacked at least three Russian military vessels and one civilian ship. Russia promised to retaliate and began intensifying its aerial attacks on Ukrainian cities.

Perhaps Americans should be grateful that the Ukrainian counteroffensive failed. Some military analysts believe a successful counterattack might provoke the Russians to use tactical nuclear weapons.

Biden apparently believes attacks on Russian shipping, the Russian heartland, and the city of Moscow will force the Russians to abandon the war. If so, he is delusional. The Russians will never surrender Crimea or the Donbas.

American foreign policy is directed by nincompoops. Our NATO allies are beginning to realize they were snookered when they agreed to back Biden’s foolish war in Ukraine.

No one can predict the event that would prompt the Russians to use tactical nuclear weapons, but we may soon find out. President Biden seems determined to drive Russia to the breaking point.

The United States is courting mortal danger by meddling in Eastern European geopolitics, and the mainstream media is complicit in this insane behavior. Meanwhile, Americans are mesmerized by the new Barbie movie, a fantasy flick for people living in Fantasy Land.

Psst: Have you seen the new Barbie movie?

Never try to stare down an alligator: Ukraine clusterbombs the Russians

Years ago, I was a single dad. My children lived in Massachusetts but spent summers with me in Louisiana.

During this time, my children and I occasionally visited Avery Island, where Tabasco hot sauce is made. Avery Island was also known for the alligators that roam free in a park-like setting. My son was fascinated by them, alligators being uncommon in Boston.

One day we spotted a 3-foot alligator sunning on the banks of a bayou. My son, perhaps 11 years old, approached it warily, creeping slowly toward the gator. I watched this encounter and felt sure the alligator would retreat once my son came close enough to make it feel threatened.

After a few moments, my son edged to within three feet of the little alligator. At that point, I felt sure the alligator would run away.

To my shock, the alligator stepped forward, coming within a couple of feet of my son. The alligator was sending a message, much like Robert De Niro‘s character sent in the movie Taxi Driver. "You talkin' me?"

My son and I learned a lesson that day: Never try to stare down an alligator, even a tiny alligator, because alligators know no fear.

Ukraine, NATO, and the United States are trying to stare down Russia. If they can just put enough pressure on the Russians--the allies seem to be telling themselves--the Russians will back off and leave Ukraine.

So far, that hasn’t worked, even though the Western alliance keeps escalating the military conflict. A few days ago, the Ukrainians began cluster bombing the Russians with munitions supplied by the U.S. Earlier this month, they attacked the Kerch bridge linking Crimea to the Russian mainland.

No one seems to realize that Russia is an alligator that can’t be stared down. No one seems to recognize how ruthless the Russians can be. Apparently, our military and political leaders have not read 900 Days, the story of the siege of Leningrad. Nor have they read Enemies at the Gate, which recounts the tale of the siege of Stalingrad, when Russian political officers shot soldiers who refused to attack German trenches.

 And the NATO honchos haven't seen enough movies. If they need a refresher course on Russian brutality, they should see Child 44, starring Tom Hardy.

America should withdraw its support of the war in Ukraine. This stupid and senseless war has already killed thousands of Ukrainians and Russians. Every escalation, including the introduction of cluster bombs, brings the United States and Russia another step closer to a global economic crisis or nuclear war.

Americans should realize that it will not be the Biden family who suffers if the war triggers an economic cataclysm. That gang of grifters have their money salted away in offshore bank accounts prudently hedged against an economic downturn.

Nor will Joe Biden’s grandchildren be called to fight in Europe if the Ukrainian war gets out of control. No, it will be the children and grandchildren of the people living in Flyover Country who will suffer and die if the Ukrainian misadventure blossoms into an all-out war. 

The Biden administration is trying to stare down an alligator, and alligators can't be starred down.

The Tar Baby Syndrome: Absent-mindedly, America lurches toward war with Russia

 A tar baby, in popular parlance, is a difficult problem only made worse by attempts to solve it. The term comes from an Uncle Remus story about Brer Fox and Brer Rabbit. Brer Fox smears a doll with tar and tricks Brer Rabbit into striking the doll repeatedly in a futile attempt to get the doll to talk. Brer Rabbit’s punches and jabs have no effect on the tar baby, and soon Brer Rabbit is stuck in the tar.

Ukraine is President Biden’s tar baby. After Russia invaded Ukraine last year, the President believed the Ukrainians could defeat the Russians if given modern weapons and training by NATO and the U.S. Army.

Things have not gone well. After 17 months of war, Ukrainian cities are in ruins, thousands of people have died, and millions of Ukrainians have become homeless refugees. Ukraine is an environmental disaster, with land mines strewn over the countryside and the lower Dnieper valley devasted by flooding.

And President Biden continues to punch the tar baby. First, his administration delivered ammunition, missiles, and javelin anti-tank weapons to the Ukrainians. That didn't do the job. Next, America and its NATO allies sent state-of-the-art tanks and armored vehicles in support of the Ukrainians’ much-ballyhooed counter-offense. But the counter-offensive bogged down, and the Russians destroyed many of the donated tanks and armored personnel carriers.

The Biden administration admits it can't supply Ukraine with all the conventional ammunition it needs to defeat the Russians. Thus, the President has decided to send cluster munitions outlawed by more than 100 countries, including many of America's NATO allies. Some call this move a war crime.

Are we done yet? Apparently not. This week the President authorized the Department of Defense to send 3,000 army reservists to Europe. This is in addition to the 20,000 troops sent to Europe earlier in the war. And Biden has promised to send F16 fighter jets to Ukraine.

President Biden is stuck to the tar baby, and the American people are stuck with him. I see no good outcome to this unfortunate war. Ukraine will never drive Russia out of Crimea, although Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s president, says he will do that. Nor will Ukraine recover the Donbas region.

We should remember that The US fomented this war in Ukraine when it helped topple a pro-Russian Ukrainian president in 2014, which prompted Russia to annex Crimea. Americans seem to think Ukraine is a democracy, but Zelenskyy suspended elections during the war, and his government is riddled with corruption.

This war is as stupid and unnecessary as the conflict in Vietnam or the First World War, for that matter. Yet Biden’s fight has broad bipartisan support in Congress and the mainstream media. No one seems concerned by recent disclosures that Hunter Biden has taken money from the Ukrainians. Nobody seems worried that an amoral octogenarian suffering from dementia is determining American war policy.

Some policy experts think the Ukrainian war will eventually destroy the Russian economy and force Putin out of power. I don't think so. NPR reported last April that the Russian ruble was the world's top-performing currency

No, it is the American economy that is most threatened by the Ukrainian shit show. By the time this tragedy winds down, the dollar will no longer be the world's reserve currency. We will be fortunate if we can get out of this mess without going to war with Russia.

Cluster Bombs for the Ukrainian Misadventure: America Moves Closer to Open War With Russia

Last week, President Biden announced his decision to send cluster munitions to Ukraine. Not so long ago, his administration said that the use of cluster bombs was possibly a war crime. Indeed, more than 100 nations--including France, Germany, and Great Britain--have signed a treaty banning cluster munitions in warfare.

Ukraine's war with the Russians is not going well, however, and the American military says it is necessary to send these heinous killing devices to the Ukrainians.

Why?  Because it is expedient.

The United States is running out of the conventional artillery shells that the Ukrainians are currently using against the Russians. The American military says it won’t be able to meet Ukraine’s demands for conventional artillery ammunition until next spring. However, the US has a stockpile of cluster munitions which it can deliver right away.

Jake Sullivan, the administration's apologist on military matters, says that cluster weapons are justified in order to efficiently kill more Russians, who are deeply entrenched along the battlefront. Also, Sullivan maintains, the Ukrainians will be using these weapons in their own country, and its army will be especially careful not to endanger the lives of civilians.

What does this development tell us about the conflict in Ukraine? First, the United States has reconciled itself to the fact that Ukraine’s war with Russia will be a long war, probably lasting years.

Second, the decision to give an internationally condemned weapon to the Ukrainians is a sign that Ukraine cannot win this war using conventional weapons.

I am opposed to sending cluster bombs to Ukraine. This reckless move brings the United States one step closer to to open war with Russia. In fact, Russia may use America’s escalation as an excuse to use tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine.

There was a time when America’s involvement in Ukraine’s war would have been opposed by liberal-minded Americans. When the US was prosecuting a futile war in Vietnam, it faced growing opposition on college campuses, which culminated in the shutdown of most American colleges in the spring of 1970.

Today, college students obsess on transgender rights and gender neutral bathrooms. They are too distracted by trivial matters to ponder the moral implications of America’s involvement in the biggest European military conflict since the Second World War.

Truth is the first casualty of war: I am opposed to American involvement in the Ukrainian conflict

 Truth, the sages say, is the first casualty of war. This aphorism certainly applies to the war in Ukraine.

Who knows what is actually going on? Daily, we read headlines reporting that the Ukrainians have shot down dozens of Russian missiles and drones. The media tells us that only a handful of projectiles get through Ukrainian defenses, and only a few civilians get killed. We are also told that the Ukrainian military is holding its own against the Russians and making modest gains on the battlefront.

Are these reports accurate? What are the military casualties that have been suffered on both sides? How extensive is the damage to Ukrainian cities and infrastructure after 16 months of war? The death and carnage must be immense.

Everyone acknowledges that military aid from NATO and the United States is the only reason the Russians haven’t conquered Ukraine. Yet the Russians claim that NATO weapons are not invincible and that they have destroyed or captured state-of-the-art NATO tanks and armored vehicles. 

Are the Russians telling the truth? Who knows?

The United States declares it is not at war with Russia, yet the Russians surely believe we are. American involvement has been crucial in preventing a Russian victory. American weapons, ammunition, and expertise have contributed to massive Russian casualties, and even the city of Moscow has come under attack.

I see no good outcome to this war. I don’t believe the Ukrainians can win it. Certainly, Volodymyr Zelenskyy's prediction that the Ukrainians will reclaim Crimea is an idle boast. After all, the Russians have a major naval base there, and losing it would be an existential threat to its status as a military power.

It seems inevitable that the Russians will control the Russian-speaking regions of eastern Ukraine when this war is over. 

Why is the United States contributing to the death and destruction in Ukraine? I can think of no other reason but to distract the American people from our government's colossal corruption and fraud.

I might feel better about this war if our president were competent. But he is not.  Even if the New York Times won't admit it, the whole world knows that Joe Biden suffers from dementia and is a crook. 

How is America paying for the weapons, ammunition, and logistical support it sends to Kyiv? Our country has run a deficit budget for 20 years and can’t pay its bills even without the costs of the Ukrainian war.

American involvement in the Ukraine war is wrong. It has weakened our country and diminished the respect the United States has across the globe.

Furthermore, the Russians will find a way to punish the United States for fomenting and prosecuting this needless war. I don’t think the Russians will retaliate militarily. Rather, they will figure out a way to hurt America economically--perhaps by undermining the status of the American dollar as the world's reserve currency.

If the American public continues to permit our government to prolong the Ukrainian war, all Americans will pay a heavy price. I think we will pay that price soon--perhaps within the next one or two years.

photo credit: CBC

The Supreme Court Strikes Down Biden’s Student Loan Forgiveness Plan: The President Scrambles to Appease College Debtors

 To no one's surprise, the Supreme Court struck down President Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan. The president should have seen it coming. He said himself that he doubted whether he had the authority to forgive student loans. Nevertheless, like a child in a temper tantrum, Biden blames the debacle on Republicans.

In a recent public statement, President Biden said he would “stop at nothing to find other ways to deliver relief to hard-working middle-class families.” The White House announced that the Department of Education is rolling out a new income-based repayment plan so generous that most college borrowers enrolled in the new program will pay little or nothing on their undergraduate federal loans.

Due to the COVID crisis, the Department of Education allowed 40 million student loan debtors to skip their loan payments for the past three years without accruing penalties. The Supreme Court’s decision means these borrowers must resume making monthly loan payments later this summer.

In typical govspeak, The White House said yesterday it will construct a bureaucratic “on ramp” to make it easier for student borrowers to repay their loans. As a practical matter, this on-ramp will encourage most debtors to delay making loan payments for another year.

 Why all this sturm and drang? Why all this turmoil? Why is the federal government constructing elaborate workarounds to the Supreme Court's decision?

If President Biden really means it when he says he will stop at nothing to deliver relief to middle-class families, he can do one simple thing. He can encourage Congress to amend the Bankruptcy Code to allow distressed student debtors to discharge their student loans in the bankruptcy courts. All Congress needs to do is delete two words from the Code: “undue hardship.”    

This solution to the student loan crisis is so simple that even a child can understand it. Why then has President Biden yet to endorse bankruptcy reform? Why didn't Democrats enact this reform when they had control of Congress? Why don't Republicans support it now?

I'll tell you why. Important political constituencies are happy with the status quo.  Colleges and universities benefit from a system that pumps billions of dollars of federal money into their coffers without holding them accountable in any way. Colleges are free to raise tuition year after year--forcing their students to borrow more and more money--without regard to whether the students can repay their loans.

The student loan crisis will not be solved until higher education is reformed. Unfortunately, colleges and universities. have no incentive to reform themselves. Thus, the student loan crisis will not be addressed until American higher education collapses.

Is college worth what it costs?

The Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions: Ain’t nothing gonna change at the universities

Yesterday, in an opinion authored by Chief Justice John Roberts, the US Supreme Court struck down affirmative action in college admissions. The vote was 6 to 3.

The Court's analysis was straightforward. When reviewing admission applications, the decision instructed, applicants should be judged based on their individual experience, not race.

Unfortunately. as Justice Roberts wrote: 

Many universities have for too long done just the opposite. And in doing so, they have concluded, wrongly, that the touchstone of an individual's identity is not challenges bested, skills built, or lessons learned but the color of their skin. Our constitutional history does not tolerate that choice.

Now that the Supreme Court has declared affirmative action in college admissions unconstitutional, will universities change how they do business? I don’t think so.

American universities are obsessed with race, and many university presidents, deans, and professors view American history as nothing more than a litany of oppression by white racists against people of color. University leaders will likely reject the Supreme Court’s ruling and continue admitting students based on race using their well-honed skills at subterfuge.

Indeed, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg suggested as much in her dissenting opinion in Gratz v. Bollinger. This is what she wrote: "One can reasonably anticipate, therefore, the colleges and universities will seek to maintain their minority enrollment . . . whether or not they can do so in full candor . . . " Justice Ginsburg concluded her dissenting opinion by saying, "If honesty is the best policy, surely [Michigan University’s] accurately described, fully disclosed College affirmation program is preferable to achieving similar numbers through winks, nods, and disguises."

What kind of winks, nods, and disguises are we talking about? Here are a couple of examples from my personal experience. When I was a doctoral student at Harvard Graduate School of Education, the school sponsored a scholarly publication called the Harvard Education Review. Students could compete to get on the journal's editorial board, and new board members were appointed by students already on it. A Harvard faculty member described the Harvard Educational Review as a racial ghetto, and indeed it was. As best as I could determine, no heterosexual white students were on the board.

Despite warnings from fellow students that my application would be rejected, I applied for membership on the Harvard Educational Review's editorial board.

My application was rejected. Of course, there was no written policy banning white men from being on the journal's editorial board, and board members could surely articulate alternative reasons for the board's decisions. Nevertheless, I believe board members were selected based on race.

As my Harvard studies drew to a close, I traveled to Washington, DC, to attend a faculty recruitment conference sponsored by the Association of American Law Schools. I hoped to get a job as a law professor.

When I arrived at the conference, I found that job applicants were sorted into three waiting rooms. One room was reserved for women attendees, another was reserved for people of color, and a third waiting room was open to anybody. Only white men were in that room.

I got a couple of interviews, but I spent most of the day watching other white men reading the Washington Post in the white men's waiting room. Meanwhile, women and people of color were busy attending job reviews. In my opinion, I was witnessing affirmative action.

I am not bitter about those experiences. I had a good career as an educational policy researcher. I feel sure that I published more scholarly articles than the combined output of everyone else in my Harvard doctoral cohort.

I'd like to make one point regarding the Supreme Court's recent decision to strike down affirmative action in college admissions. The universities should be honest about what they are doing. If the Supreme Court declares affirmative action to violate the Constitution, universities should stop practicing affirmative action.

Supreme Court says bye bye to affirmative action

 

 

Reparations for descendants of oppressed people: Count me in!

A special California task force has recommended giving Black Californians about $800 billion in reparations in compensation for the exploitation their enslaved ancestors suffered. Some people say this is a bad idea. After all, California never permitted slavery, and many African Americans came to California long after the Civil War to pursue opportunities in the California defense industry during World War II. California has a good record of treating African Americans fairly, and some people wonder why the state would consider reparations.

I'm in favor of the California reparation plan, and I hope every African American in the Golden State gets at least a million dollars. In fact, I think every American whose ancestors were exploited in any way should get a cash settlement.

However, I don't think I personally should have to pay reparations to anybody. Jonah Fossey, my great-grandfather, immigrated with his family from England in the 1880s and landed in Halifax, Canada. Later he settled in eastern Kansas. No Fossey ever owned a slave. You can't pin that rap on the Fosseys.

This seems like a good time to make my own claim for reparations based on the exploitation my ancestors experienced over the past 100 years or so. First, some of my immediate family lived in northwestern Oklahoma in the heart of the Dust Bowl. If you've seen The Grapes of Wrath, directed by John Ford, you know that the Dust Bowl farmers were exploited by banks and big money interests. Many were forced to migrate to California, where they suffered severe discrimination. In fact, the California Highway Patrol set up roadblocks at the state border to prevent Okie refugees from entering.

California discriminated against my Dust Bowl ancestors, and I demand reparations. I'm talking about the high six figures. 

I telephoned Governor Newsom about this matter. (I'm on his speed dial, and he always takes my calls.) Gav agreed that the Okies were victims of vicious discrimination and promised to send me a check and a complimentary gift card for the French Laundry restaurant.

Second, there's that little matter of my father's incarceration in a Japanese concentration camp during World War Two. My father suffered severe PTSD from that experience, and the nation of Japan owes my family hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars. And let's not forget that the United States military was negligent in not preparing for the Japanese invasion of the Philippines, where my father was stationed when he was captured. So the US government owes us some money as well.

Let's see now--what other grievances do I have? Oh yes. I'm a Catholic, and Catholics have been severely discriminated against in the United States since colonial times. Historically, the most virulent anti-Catholic bigots were concentrated in New England, and I have a big-time claim as a Catholic against the Bay State.

So let's get this reparations program rolling. I'm setting up a Panamanian bank account where the federal, Massachusetts and Japanese governments can wire my reparations checks. I would like my funds designated as a tort settlement so I won't have to pay taxes on the money.

California owes me big time!

Simmons University plans to cut several liberal arts programs due to financial crisis

Simmons University, founded in 1902, is Boston’s only women's university. Although the school admits men to its graduate programs, its undergraduate school is restricted to women. 

Actually, that's not entirely true. Simmons admits transgender students who identify as women. Thus, an applicant who has testicles but regrets them is eligible for admission to Simmons.

Simmons boasts that 40 percent of its students identify as LGBTQ, and 34 percent identify as ALANA. ALANA is an acronym for African, Latino, Asian, or Native American. 

Despite Simmons’s niche as a women’s college and a college attractive to the LGBTQ community and women of color, the school is losing enrollment. In fact, the Simmons student body has shrunk by 11.5 percent since the fall of 2019.

Fewer students mean less revenue, and Simmons is struggling financially. The school ended its 2022 fiscal year with a loss of $14.5 million.

To reduce costs, Simmons is planning to cut some liberal arts programs, including its programs in philosophy, modern languages, and sociology. As might be expected, this move is opposed by some faculty members. One professor said, “Cutting out the humanities and social sciences is like cutting out the heart and then seeing if the body will still walk.”

Of course, professors rarely support cutting academic programs or laying off faculty members, even when enrollments are down. After all, fewer students in their classrooms mean fewer student papers to grade.

Lynn Perry Wooten, the University president, has tried to assure faculty members that their views will receive ample consideration. “[Y]es, some majors may go away,” Wooten acknowledged, “but it's [about] letting everyone have a voice in the change and then making a process that works” (as quoted in the Boston Globe).

Simmons is one of many small private colleges across the United States that are being forced to cut programs in the liberal arts and the humanities. In fact, it would be irresponsible for those schools not to eliminate academic programs that are no longer financially viable.

An undergraduate degree from Simmons University costs about a quarter of a million dollars, forcing most students to take out loans to finance their studies. A student would have to be nuts to spend that kind of money to get a sociology or philosophy degree from Simmons University or any other small private college.

 

  

 

Three women were stabbed in New York subways over the weekend: Flyover Country looks better and better

 Three women were stabbed in the New York subways over the weekend. All three were relatively young. A 19-year-old woman with stabbed in the leg while going up a stairway. A few moments later, the same assailant stabbed a 48-year-old woman on a subway platform. Shortly after that attack, he stabbed a 28-year-old woman on a subway train bound for Brooklyn.

These events were the latest in a string of subway assaults in New York City. Generally, the attacker is not apprehended. Twice in recent weeks, a subway passenger stepped in to neutralize an attacker and killed him. In both instances, the rescuer was charged with manslaughter.

Why would anyone live in New York City? Economic opportunity? Yes, salaries are higher in New York City than in other parts of the country. But the cost of living is also higher, much higher. A person living in Baton Rouge and making $50,000 a year would need to make $117,000 in New York City just to maintain the same standard of living.

New York is an excellent city for millionaires, and New York has more millionaires than any other American city. However, even millionaires are fleeing the Big Apple.  Twelve percent of them moved elsewhere in the first half of 2022.

Of course, New York has more cultural attractions than any other American locale. Do you want to attend the opera, take in a Broadway play, or look at abstract art? You’ll find more of that stuff in New York than in Omaha, Tulsa, or Chattanooga.

Personally, I hate opera, and I detest abstract art. I'm a fan of Western American art, which I can see at the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth or the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa. More art museums appeal to my taste in Taos, NM than in Manhattan. And remember the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, and it's easy to find a parking space.

Fine cuisine? Yes, New York has more five-star restaurants than any other American town. But you can't beat Praise Dah Lard in Woodville, Mississippi, for fresh cracklins. The world's best chicken fried steak can be found at the Hitching Post restaurant in Ozona, Texas, not Gallaghers in Manhattan, and you don't need reservations.

I love America’s cities. I spent some of the happiest years of my life in Houston, the nation's most culturally diverse city. Unfortunately, however, the nation’s metropolises are in decline. New Orleans is now America's murder capital. Homelessness, rampant shoplifting, and empty office towers have laid San Francisco low, and people are leaving Chicago and New York by the thousands.

Americans are fleeing the cities, and they are smart to do so. Of course, the folks living in Flyover Country don't have a view of the Manhattan skyline. Nevertheless, I can personally attest that the skyscrapers of New York are no more beautiful than a view of the bloodred sun going down over Lake Mary, Mississippi.

Froma Harrop wants more wind turbines in Texas. Why not Providence, Rhode Island?

Texas provides 28 percent of the nation's wind-generated electricity. Most of the state's wind turbines are located in West Texas, where the wind blows almost constantly. Anyone driving across the Texas plains has seen thousands of enormous wind turbines dotting the mesas and buttes. If you go west on Interstate 20 or Highway 287 at night, you will see thousands of lights blinking atop the ceaselessly turning windmills, installed, I suppose, to warn aircraft pilots that they’re flying over a hazardous area.

Some Texans are alarmed by the proliferation of wind turbines on the Great Plains. People who live on the plains are assaulted daily by the visual pollution of giant windmills that litter the horizon. Bills have been introduced in the Texas legislature to regulate the wind energy business and to assess its environmental impact on the Texans who live near wind farms.

Froma Harrop, a newspaper columnist and East Coast liberal, criticized Texas political leaders who want to get better control of the wind energy business. Texas Republicans are opposed to government regulation, she argues, so it is inconsistent for the Republican-dominated Texas legislature to put more regulatory controls on the windmills that pollute the landscape of the High Plains and the Llano Estacado.

Harrop doesn’t live in West Texas. She lives in New York City and Providence, Rhode Island. She’s not bothered by the ugliness of wind turbines that scar the landscape of West Texas. After all, she doesn’t have to look at them.

I have driven across West Texas dozens of times and have seen the giant wind farms that blight the plains. Texas is producing more than a quarter of the nation's wind-generated electricity. Isn’t that enough?

Almost everyone favors renewable energy development, particularly the liberals on the East and West Coasts. They might feel differently if they saw thousands of wind turbines from their living room windows.

Scott Momoday, a Kiowa and winner of the Pulitzer Prize in literature, grew up in southwestern Oklahoma, on the very edge of the Great Plains. He wrote about the landscape of the West from a Native American perspective and believed that this landscape contains many sacred places:

To encounter the sacred [Momoday wrote] is to be alive at the deepest center of human existence. Sacred places are the truest definitions of the earth; they stand for the earth immediately and forever; they are its flags and shields. If you would know the earth for what it really is, learn it through its sacred places. At Devil’s Tower or Canyon de Chelly or the Cahokia Mounds, you touch the pulse of the living planet; you feel its breath upon you. You become one with a spirit that pervades geologic time and space.

Scott Momoday and I grew up on the same landscape of western Oklahoma, a land of majestic views, blue skies, bloodred sunsets, and the Wichita Mountains shimmering improbably on the horizon. I agree with Momoday that this landscape contains many sacred places. Thus, it is a sacrilege to deface it or make it ugly.

As for Froma Harrop, she should live for a couple of years in Snyder, Texas, among the thousands of wind turbines polluting the Great Plains. Let’s see how she likes it, and when she’s completed her sojourn in West Texas, I would like to see her return to Providence, Rhode Island, and find thousands of wind turbines blotting out the seascape.

Texans should not permit more wind turbines in West Texas until a comparable number are placed off the coasts of Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, and the Hamptons. Let the coastal elites pollute their own visual environment before asking Texans to further desecrate the High Plains.

If you're going to San Francisco, you're sure to find some feces on your shoes

After my freshman year at Oklahoma State University, I hitchhiked to Montana, hoping to get a summer job working for the National Forest Service. That plan didn’t work out, and I wound up working in a sawmill in the little town of West Yellowstone.

That was the summer of 1966, when young people were heading west to California, where the Beach Boys sang about a little surfer girl, and San Fransisco's Haight Ashbury district promised abundant marijuana and free love. West Yellowstone, where I was stuck, was merely a waystation for youngsters headed west, a place to refuel on pizza and Olympia beer.

"Are You Going to San Francisco" was a radio hit that summer and Scott McKenzie's lyrics seem to sum up the spirit of the day. "If you’re going to San Francisco," McKenzie sang, "be sure to wear some flowers in your hair." I recall standing on West Yellowstone’s main street, listening to that song on someone's transistor radio and wishing I had the money and the courage to go to San Francisco and hang out with the hippies.  When I arrived there,  the song assured me, I would find the gentle people I had been unable to locate in Oklahoma.

Fifty years later, I don’t think many people go to San Francisco to find gentle people or put flowers in their hair. The city is a mess. Homelessness is out of control, and deadbeats shoot dope and defecate in the streets.  Office towers suffer from a 30% vacancy rate, and retailers are moving out. Whole Foods, Nordstrom, Office Depot, and Walgreens, are fleeing Frisco to escape crime and rampant shoplifting.

San Francisco is the poster child for the downfall of American cities. New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and other major metropolises suffer the same malaise.

Every American should be alarmed by this trend because American cities are where creative people go to find opportunities. As Michael Marotta wrote in a blog essay, “The city is literally civilization. Cities--not nations or American 'states'--are the engines of creation and progress." Indeed, Marotta argued, "the American republic is culturally a very large city."

Unfortunately, most major American cities are run by idiots and race hustlers. They think they are showcasing their liberal values by enacting policies encouraging homelessness, shoplifting, and random muggings. They equate anarchy with personal liberty when in fact our individual freedoms are best protected in a society that respects the rule of law.

So if you’re going to San Francisco, don’t expect to find gentle people with flowers in their hair.  In today's San Francisco, you are more likely to find feces on your shoes.

 

Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair.

Ukraine attacks Moscow; Americans obsess on transgender participation in women's sports

The movie Shane, released in 1953, is a classic Western movie that depicts the struggle between good and evil. The good guys are homesteaders who want to establish farms and peacefully raise their families. The bad guys are cattlemen who hire an assassin to drive off the homesteaders.

Stonewall Torrey (played by Elijah Cook, Jr.) is a hapless homesteader who boasts to his friends that he’s not afraid of the assassin, and he straps on his revolver and rides to town. In the town's saloon, Torrey meets the assassin (played by Jack Palance). The killer taunts and insults Torrey until he foolishly goes for his gun. The assassin kills Torrey with one bullet.

America is replaying the movie Shane. The United States is the foolish and bombastic Torrey, and Russia is the assassin waiting for an opportunity to strike.

A couple of days ago, Ukrainian drones attacked the suburbs of Moscow. Who believes the Ukrainians took that provocative action without the approval and cooperation of the United States? 

What in the hell are we doing? Does our government believe it can arm the Ukrainians with sophisticated weapons that have killed perhaps 100,000 Russian soldiers without suffering repercussions?

America’s media elites, intellectual elites, and government technocrats may think it’s fun to poke the Russian bear. If war breaks out between Russia and the United States, it will be the kids living in flyover country who will do the fighting. 

But perhaps the boobs who are running our government have miscalculated. Have they forgotten that we’re messing with a nuclear power?

Meanwhile, Americans obsess about transgender participation in women’s sports and drag queens in school libraries. How long will the Russians put up with our foolish dabbling in Eastern European affairs?

I oppose American involvement in the Ukraine war.  I can see no positive outcome for anybody.

Our Lady of Guadalupe miraculously appears at a railroad crossing on Houston's Kirby Street

I subscribe to the Houston Catholic Worker, the official newspaper of Casa Juan Diego, the Catholic Worker Hospitality House in Houston, Texas. My copy arrived in the mail yesterday, and I was disturbed to read that someone had stolen Casa Juan Diego’s ancient food delivery truck. Fortunately, the police recovered the vehicle, but thieves had removed the cargo box leaving the truck naked down to its frame.

I first saw that delivery truck in 2003 or 2004 while teaching at the University of Houston. I was driving down Kirby Street when I stopped at a railroad crossing so a train could pass. While waiting in my car, I saw the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe rising out of the traffic ahead of me. I was startled and instantly thought that I had been privileged to see an apparition of Mary, who has appeared from time to time in places like Fatima, Lourdes, and the little Irish village of Knock.

Staring intently, I realized that the image of La Virgen Morena had been painted on the rolling steel door on the back of the truck. After the train passed by, I caught up with the mysterious vehicle. I looked over and saw two ordinary men sitting in the truck cab. I spied nothing that would explain why the Virgin of Guadalupe was painted on the truck’s cargo door.

I could not get this seemingly trivial incident out of my mind, and I mentioned it to John Burke, a Catholic friend of mine. John said the truck belonged to Casa Juan Diego, the Catholic Worker homeless shelter and food pantry just off Kirby Street in West Houston.

I had an unpleasant job at a local university at the time and looked for ways to escape from vicious campus politics. I volunteered to help haul food from the Houston Food Pantry to Casa Maria, Casa Juan Diego’s food distribution site located in one of the barrios of southwest Houston. Every Thursday morning, I joined a group of volunteers who traveled in Casa Juan Diego’s food delivery truck to help load and unload four tons of donated food to Casa Maria. Occasionally we would stop at a Mexican food wholesaler, picking up several hundred pounds of rice and pinto beans.

This volunteer work was a blessing to me. I was doing something useful for at least a few hours every week. As a result of my vision of Our Lady of Guadalupe on Kirby Street, I was introduced to the Catholic Worker movement and the writings of its founder, Dorothy Day. I also learned about the seven corporal works of mercy, which form the mission statement of the Catholic Worker movement.

Perhaps most importantly, I came to know Mark and Louise Zwick, who founded Casa Juan Diego and devoted their lives to assisting the poor, particularly the undocumented Latin American immigrants who reside within the sheltering folds of a welcoming and generous metropolitan Houston. Someday, Dorothy Day will be canonized by the Catholic Church, and I believe Mark and Louise will be canonized as well.

In the meantime, the Catholic Workers of Houston have replaced the stolen cargo box. Soon, they will paint a new image of Our Lady of Guadalupe on the rolling backdoor of Casa Juan Diego’s venerable food delivery truck, thereby invoking the protection of the Little Brown Virgin, the Patroness of the Americas.

 Listen and understand, my littlest son, let nothing frighten and afflict you or trouble your heart … Am I not here, I, who am your mother? Are you not under my shadow? 

 

 

 

 

Blue Plate mayonnaise rolls out a new label and gets at least one new customer. Meanwhile, Budweiser loses its fan base

Liz Faul, who writes for my local newspaper, reported a charming story about Blue Plate mayonnaise, made by a New Orleans company that's been in business since 1927. As Faul’s story explains, Blue Plate recently rolled out a new label that will likely attract new customers.

Why is the New Orleans mayonnaise company named Blue Plate anyway? The name refers to Blue Willow plates, which were popular in the South in the 1920s. Blue Plate's version of the plate features depictions of a pelican, a river steamboat, and Magnolia blossoms. These words appear across the top of the label: “A New Orleans family tradition since 1927.”

I love the new label, and as soon as I finished reading Liz Faul’s story about it, I told myself Kraft mayonnaise, you are dead to me.

What makes the Blue Plate mayonnaise label so appealing? It's because it seeks to bond with its customers. The label reminds grocery shoppers that the mayonnaise is made in New Orleans, America’s foremost food city. The Blue Willow plate design, with its images of a pelican, a steamboat, and magnolia blossoms, signals that the company is proud of its regional heritage.

Compare Blue Plate’s new label with Budweiser’s disastrous advertising campaign designed to make the company appear woke by putting a transgender influencer’s mug on its beer cans. That harebrained scheme cost Bud Light about a quarter of its customers in just a few months.

Insulting corporate customers is like cheating on one's wife. The relationship may survive, but it will never be the same. Several of my Louisiana relatives were loyal Bud Light customers until they saw Dylan Mulvaney’s endorsement of their favorite brew. I don’t think any of them will ever drink a Bud Light again.

Bud’s boycotting customers are not transphobes or homophobes. They’re just people who like to drink beer and associate beer with bowling, fishing, golfing, and watching football games on television on Saturday afternoons. And when they're relaxing with a brewski, they don't want to talk politics.

And Budweiser knows that. If you look at vintage Budweiser advertisements in old magazines, you will see nostalgic scenes picturing people having a good time in casual settings. And when they’re having that good time, they certainly don’t want to be virtue signaled by their beer company.

What will my relatives drink now that they’re boycotting Bud Light? Maybe they’ll switch to Modelo, a Mexican beer company that promotes itself as a beer for fighters.

This Bud's not for you, you transphobic son of a bitch.

God bless people who work at useful jobs

Millions of Americans don’t work. Some are unemployed and looking for work; others simply refuse to look for a job. In fact,12 percent of men in their prime working years aren't in the workforce and aren't looking for work. Millions of healthy men are living off relatives, surviving on government benefits, or working side hustles in the underground economy and not paying taxes.

Millions more have jobs but are not doing anything useful. I spent 25 years in higher education, and I can tell you that many professors have retired on the job. These professors don’t do research, teach their classes poorly, and don’t show up at their offices except for mandatory office hours (maybe six hours a week). Hardly any university schedules classes on Friday, which means that a large percentage of university faculty members are working four-day weeks.

All across the national economy, we see Americans doing nothing more than pushing paper around. People in the advertising game are blitzing us with inane commercials for products we don't want or don't need. The gaming industry is promoting gambling, which is a pernicious and addictive pastime,

Thankfully, millions of Americans are working hard at jobs that need to be done. I suffered a stroke last month in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I dialed 911, and six EMS professionals showed up at my location within five minutes, despite the fact I had given them an incorrect address. I was able to unlock the front door even though I was partially paralyzed, but the 911 dispatcher assured me that my rescuers were willing and able to break down the door to get to me,

Those people work hard and are well-trained. My EMS team got me to a hospital in time for me to receive a time-sensitive drug that limited the long-term damage from my stroke.

Now I am in rehab, working with a physical therapist, an occupational therapist, and a speech therapist. All my therapists are highly skilled young women who are enthusiastic about their jobs and full of energy. They assure me I will make a full recovery and walk again.

Our economy is changing drastically, and many college students are taking out loans to get an education that will not lead to a good job. A bachelor's degree in the humanities, liberal arts, or social sciences is a dead-end degree. A young person taking out student loans to get a degree in these soft disciplines may be committing financial suicide.

Most young people want a satisfying career in a field that pays well. Most of them seek work that is useful and meaningful. Today, smart young people don’t go to college to get a liberal arts degree. Instead, they choose majors that offer a clear path to a well-paying job and a satisfying career. 

I am grateful that some of these intelligent young people are choosing to work as first responders and healthcare workers. Our society needs them. I'm not sure it needs humanities professors.